Agricultural Land Use and the Rural Sector Correlates to Chapter 11

1. Agricultural Land Use and the Rural SectorCorrelates to Chapter 11 Fast Facts Economic Activities Agricultural Revolutions Von Thunen’s Model

3. Farm Facts • Roughly 22 million Americans produce, process & sell nation’s food • Slightly less than 2% (4.6 million) are farmers • Consumers spend about $547 billion for food originating on U.S. farms and ranches • Farmer’s share is roughly .23 cents per dollar • Every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year: about$6 million U.S. products (grain, oilseeds, cottons, meats, vegetables) are consigned for export to foreign countries • Survey of young farmers: Computers are used on 83% of U.S. farms; nearly 75% have cell phones • 17% of the American workforce, or 25 million jobs, were involved in some phase of agriculture, either growing, processing or distributing... making the food and fiber system the nation’s largest employer. • U.S. agricultural exports (excluding fish and forestry products) totaled $51.6 billion dollars and generated and additional $116 billion in business • Excluding farm labor, 444,000 people processed, packaged, stored, financed, marketed and shipped agricultural products.

4. Wisconsin Agriculture • Farmers own 16 million acres of land – 44% of total land in Wisconsin • Farmer Spending: • Off-farm labor: $.38 • Farmers & ranchers: $.19 • Packaging: $.8 • Repairs: $.5 • Rent: $4.5 • Transportation: $.4 • Food Spending: disposable income • U.S. 10% • France 18% • Germany 21% • Japan 26% • It takes less than 40 days for most Americans to earn enough money to pay their food supply for the entire year (roughly $2,400)

5. Wisconsin Rankings World production Global Rankings: Dairy Production • First: • Cheese: 2.4 billion pounds • Cranberries: 3.6 million barrels • Mink pelts: 778,000 • Second: • Butter: 383 pounds • Milk: 22 billion pounds • Milk cows: 1.23 million • Third: • Carrots: 86,400 tons • Potatoes: 2.7 billion tons • Fourth: • Maple syrup: 100,000 gallons • Oats: 13 million bushels

6. Classifying Economic Activity • Primary : extractive sector; direct extraction of natural resources from the environment; hunting and gathering, herding, fishing, mining, farming, lumbering,… • Secondary : manufacturing sector; processes raw materials & transforms them into finished industrial products; almost infinite range of commodities (toys, chemicals, buildings, …) • Tertiary : service sector; engaged in services (transportation, banking, education, …) • Quaternary: concerned w/ collection, processing, and manipulation of information & capital (finance, administration, insurance, legal services) • Quinary : require a high level of specialized knowledge or skill (scientific research, high-level management)

8. Rise of Agriculture • Agriculture – the deliberate tending of crops and livestock in order to produce food and fiber • A recent innovation (12,000 yrs.) • Permitted people to settle permanently with the assurance food would be available (storage) • Before farming - early communities improved tools (sticks, baskets), weapons (clubs, spears), innovations (use of fire) • Metallurgy: separating metal from ores, developed prior to plant & animal domestication • Fishing – after Ice Age (12,000 – 15,000 yrs ago), coastal regions become warmer • Alternating periods of plenty and scarcity

9. Agriculture transformed way of life; exploited relatively small area of land intensively for given period of time (image of Ban Po, China • Challenges of New Way of Life • Dependency of fewer crops (like this picture in modern-day Turkey • Greater vulnerability to weather • Dependency on harvest time • Need for intense physical labor

10. Agricultural Revolutions • First Agricultural Revolution: • 12,000 yrs ago (Neolithic Era) Fertile Crescent, China, N. Africa… • Occurred nearly simultaneously in many areas around the world; accompanied by a modest population explosion • Domestication – plants (Carl Sauer: first north of the Bay of Bengal), animal (about 40 species today) occurred after people became more sedentary • 2nd Agricultural Revolution: • Middle Ages through Industrial Revolution; major population explosion • Improved cultivation (seed drill, crop rotation), harvesting, and storage

11. 1st Agricultural Revolution

12. Subsistence Farming – not for trade • Some are confined to small fields; may not own the soil they till • Shifting cultivation (slash & burn) – ash aids in soil fertility, abandon after a few years; 150 – 200 million people

13. Von Thünen Model (1828) • Spatial economics: location and land rent important are connected • Concentric rings where crops dominate, transportation is a key factor • R=Y(p-c)-Yfm • Farmer must maximize profit • 1 – highly perishable; dairy, fruit • 2 – forest (fuel & building material) • 3 – less perishable; field crops, grains • 4 – livestock, ranching (self-transporting) “The Isolated State”

14. Von Thunen’s Assumptions • Von Thünen Model Assumptions • Flat terrain • Constant soils & conditions • No barriers to transportation to market • Transportation improvements (canals, railroads) • The theory is not the most important element of von Thunen’s Model • The analytical approach to distance and location is what’s important (not the pattern of land use theorized)

15. Third Agricultural Revolution • a.k.a. “Green Revolution” • Began in 1960s, still in progress today • Based on higher yielding strains (wheat, rice, corn) using genetic engineering (e.g. IR36 – rice) • Greatest impact in India, China • Minimal impact in Africa (different crops, poorer soils, lack of capital to invest, …)